Pembroke to Milford Haven Walk

It was a warm summers day, the sky was light blue with the odd white puffy cloud hovering abov

e, now an again

casting a shadow across the green countryside as it passes over the strong glare of the morning sun. Myself and my friend Wiebke were on a small Arriva train heading westbound for the small Welsh town of Pembroke, famous for being the birthplace of King Henry VII.

We have completed our studies at the university in Carmarthen and were now waiting for the days to pass to graduate, we were both keen travelers and always loved going on small adventures when we can, the train was slowly chugging along the Welsh countryside, the high speed trains of Europe hasn’t made it this far west yet which made the journey more pleasurable, the scenery on your way down to Pembroke is beautiful, especially on a sunny day like today, you can watch sheep and cows grazing on the lush green grass, the buzzards flying high in the sky, and if you have really sharp eyes, you can sometimes

watch a small cluster of rabbits hoping their way around the fields before jumping back into their nearby hole.

I believe me and Wiebke must of dozed off at some point during the journey, the journey seemed a lot quicker as we were now only two stops away from Pembroke, Wiebke was stretching next to me whilst I was clicking my neck back into place, the train had no air conditioning, just a few open windows to let the breeze pass through the carriage, but sometimes this wasn’t enough.

“Next stop Pembroke” echoed the crackling sound of the conductor over the tannoy, we were waiting by the door for the train to come to a complete halt, the doors slowly opened, we stepped our first step onto the hard tarmac of the station platform, it has been a long time since I stepped foot in Pembroke, and what I like about towns in West Wales is that they never really change.

“Which way do we go” asked Wiebke, we were standing just outside the station where we were met with one of the main roads into the town, I tried remembering from before, “this way” I replied sharply. We were walking down the high street of the town, the building layout still had a medieval feel to the place but of course with modern shops, I don’t think they had a Mr Wong restaurant in medieval times. Pembroke castle stood at the end of the high street, the mighty castle walls of this once Norman castle was outstanding; Pembroke castle sits on top of this large hill, which you don’t notice until you walk down a road towards the bridge and see the impressive site, you can imagine how much power and influence this castle had on the area at one point.

We walked over towards the edges of the town, we had a choice of two paths, the first choice was over a hill and the second choice was to follow the river bank of the Pembroke River, through a forest and up over a hill that overlooks the next town, Pembroke Dock.”Which way should we go Wiebke”, I decided to give her the choice but I know deep down I wanted to take the route that goes by the river, “umm lets go this way” as Wiebke points towards the path that follows the river, this choice made me happy of course.

The river wasn’t as impressive as I thought it would have been, the tide must have been out at that time as the river was nearly dried up, I don’t think the heat was helping, the dusty path clings to the edges of the bank, to the right of us was the forest, the leaves of the trees would gently rustle in the summer breeze, you could hear the sounds of the bees and the grass hoppers crocking away in the back ground.

As we were following the path along I noticed a man sitting on the bench in the distance, he wore a blue vest and had a shaved head, he reminded me of a skin head that you would of seen back in the 80s, me and Wiebke were a little uncertain about the guy, but thought that it would be alright, so we chanced it and walked past him; as we walked past him I glanced over in his direction with a smile and the nod of the head, he stared back at me like he was lost in his own little world, before looking back down to the ground.

“Here we go, this way” Wiebke pointed whilst placing her hand on my arm; the path looked nonexistent, the path went up a steep hill through the thick trees, in fact I couldn’t call it a path, it was more of a stony and muddy slip way, slowly and steadily we both made our way up the path, holding on to some of the smaller branches coming off the trees, the thickness of the forest made the place darker than

outside the forest, the sun was hidden away , only showing its face now and again through the gaps of the upper canopy. “Oh look at this Marcus” Wiebke said with a little excitement, it was an old farm wall that has been engulfed over time by the forest, the wall was grey and covered in different shades of moss, a few fungi grew through the cracks of this crumbling wall, there were some steps that lead through a small gap “pose Wiebke” I shouted as she stood on the other side of the wall, Wiebke did her best modeling pose.

We managed to get ourselves lost, we were standing on the edge of the forest tree line staring across an open farm field, the last sign pointed in this direction but there wasn’t another sign to confirm that we had to cross a farmer’s field, I looked left and right, there wasn’t any farmers about, I pointed across to the other side “look Wiebke there is a gate over there, maybe that will take us to the path”, we nervously but excitedly crossed the field, the field was a slope, to the

right in the direction of the hill you could see all the sheep huddled together, like they were trying to avoid us, to the left of us was the view of the Pembrokeshire coastline, looking out into the massive and blue waters of the Cleddau Ddu, we got to the other gate but was just met with another large farmers field, I was hoping at this point that we were going in the right direction, because the last thing I wanted to happen was to get in a situation with an angry farmer for trespassing, we quickly walked across the second field in the direction of the cluster of trees in the far distance, we were just about to walk across a third field when Wiebke stopped in her tracts “what’s up” I said back wondering what she was looking at, “there it is, the arrow” pointing in the direction through the tree line, “thank God” I replied with a slight laughter.

Eventually the path took us over a hill and then back down again, we were now on the edges of Pembroke Dock,

there were a few dog walkers and children playing with the goats that skipped their way around the path, looking up to the top of the hill you can see some houses, this was to show that Pembroke Dock has started. We made our way into the town, making our way through the many residential streets still following the signs directions, I felt a little nervous about being in Pembroke Dock as I have had a history with some of the local boys here that I didn’t want to repeat that day, we stood on top of a hill, the grass was yellow as it has dried out from the sun, the main town centre of Pembroke Dock sat neatly at the bottom of the hill, it was an impressive site, the blue sky met the blue waters of the dock, an Irish ferry was just coming in, the old work yards were still at work and the old buildings of the town really made it a view worth coming back for, I always find the layout of Pembroke Dock interested, at the bottom of the hill sits the old town with old buildings and an old fashioned road layout whilst at the top of the hill were more 21st century houses were the town has expanded over time to accommodate the growing population of the area.

In the distance you could see the large grey Cleddau Bridge, that would take us across the Cleddau Ddu towards the small village of Neyland, “that is what we have to cross” I told Wiebke. We made our way slowly though the town, it was slightly busy but I think that was just because the ferry had just docked, I still felt an uncertainty about being in the town, we followed the large dock wall down towards the harbour where we found the old World War Two gun defender sitting out in the water, during World War Two the town was important as it created planes that could land on water, it was also a very important dock for the Royal Navy, the Nazis did managed to bomb the town on their six month bombardment of Britain, mostly focusing its bombing on the towns docks.

We followed the path around the harbour and past the police station, we then followed the road up the hill, “I am hungry” said Wiebke holding her belly, I agreed with her as my stomach started rumbling, luckily there was

a Lidl’s, we managed to get ourselves some lovely tasting patisseries such as chocolate du pan and croissants.

We found a seating area on the top of the hill, just next to the Cleddau Bridge looking back over the harbor, in the distance you could see the hill that we just walked over when we first got to town as well as the route that was still yet to come. A nosy dog came running over “sorry” shouted an older woman, “don’t worry he doesn’t bite” she quickly mentioned as I went to put my hand out to stroke the soft fur of the dog’s head.

We were standing at the entrance of the bridge, “here we go” said Wiebke, making her way to the bridge before me. The Cleddau Bridge was a very long, hot and straight bridge, we looked over the side to the passing speed boats that were making their way up the river, it took nearly 10 minutes to cross the bridge but I must say it felt longer, the bridge would ever so

slightly wobble to the movement of the larger vehicles such as the lorries and busses.

On the other side the sign pointed back in the direction of the trees, the forest was dense and followed a slim dirt path, zig zagging through the forest We were still on top of a small hill, through the gaps of the trees you could see a small little harbour hidden away with many different types of boats all different shapes and sizes.

Bang bang “Wiebke stopped in her tracts and then slowly moved behind me “there is a guy with a gun shooting” she said nervously, I clenched my eyes to get a better view of the situation, “I can see him, he is holding a rifle” I said back to Wiebke, “it’s ok, he is only shooting cans”, we made our way past him, once again

gave a nod and a smile which I then received a returned smile, after we had safely passed him you could hear the shooting again.

Another opening in the trees presented us with a view of the Cleddau Bridge and the distance we had just came already, it looked so far away. We were now making our way down a steep hill, using the stones as steps, we came out to a small water side village, I believe the village was called Llanstadwell but I am not one hundred percent sure about this information, the village had a great view of the water, where we were standing the water was wide and open, big enough for large ships to make their passage down, looking ]across the coastline the houses sparsely dotted land with a long tarmac road connecting the coast with the village, the tide was still out and the green wet stones were visible, swans and ducks were walking over the slippery stones putting their bills into the small rock pools, most probably trying to get something to eat; on the map our final destination, Milford Haven looked so close but in reality you knew the path wasn’t going to take us on a direct route there, it was going to take us on the more scenic route.

“This way” Wiebke said, noticing another arrow, the path took us back through the shade of the trees along another small dirt track, to the left of us we were looking out through the gaps of the tree to the sparkling blue water, “look, a beach” Wiebke said, already making her way down, unfortunately the beach was stony and not soft sand, but it was quite nice to hide away from everyone on our own private beach, Wiebke decided to sit on a large rock with her feet in the water, whilst I decided to go at least knees deep into the water, I was standing there talking when all for a sudden I felt a sharp pinch on my small toe, “Ouch” I shouted nearly jumping out of the water, at this point Wiebke was both laughing and confused about what has just happened, “a crab has pinched me” being a rocky beach there would be lots of crabs hiding amongst the many holes and rock pools which I had my foot in.

After some time passed we made our way off the beach, we had to be in Milford Haven by a certain time to catch the train otherwise it is going to be a long wait, following the dirt track back through the forest we came to

an unsafe looking bridge that took us up to a higher hill, Wiebke was a bit uncertain about the safety of the bridge and deep down I was feeling the same, but that still didn’t stop the child in me jumping on it when we were in the middle of the bridge, Wiebke looked at me with the face of hatred as I was giving her a cheeky smile back, at the top of the bridge it took us back onto another path with big bends, the roaring sound a scrambling bike was heading in our direction, the noise was getting louder, once again Wiebke stood next to me as we tried to keep out of the way of the bike on a sharp bend, all for a sudden the bike appears and slams on its breaks, in fact there were two of them, the bikers were teenagers who decided to spend the day scrambling their bikes along the many dirt paths, he waved us through before quickly disappearing again.

We were now out of the forest, we had views of the blue water once again and large open fields, just across the water were tall chimneys from the Pembroke Power Station, we followed the path along and came across one of my worst nightmares, it’s a field full of long grass, I try to avoid them in summer because I am one of the unlucky people that suffer from hayfever, especially from this certain type of grass, I stood there and looked at the seeds floating in the air in tune with the breeze, walking through the field my nose started to tickle, my eyes felt like they were going to burst out of my head and my nose was running like a tap that had been left on, the sneezing was constant, I was struggling to see where I was going, the back of my throat started to itch which in the end made me feel hopeless, Wiebke at this point was laughing at me suffering, I think it was karma’s way of paying me back for jumping on the bridge earlier, after leaving the field that was me for the day, a blubbering mess who is now walking blind from the streams of water running out of my eyes.

Finally we made it out of the field and back onto the road, we were following the road signs towards Milford Haven, the tarmac on the road felt sticky, if you looked closely you could see the tarmac slightly melting in the sun’s heat, the small river sparkled as it went under a small bricked bridge, we were now on the edge of Milford Haven, the town is also a dock town just like Pembroke Dock, well known for its shipping industry, we followed the quiet road around the coastline, following the signs for the train station, we were running out of time as the train would soon be leaving, Milford has a Georgian style to the buildings which now house more modern businesses such as Barclays Bank and smaller independent shops, we can see the train station in the distance “quick quick quick” Wiebke said going in a slightly squeakier tone, we power walked as fast as we can to the station to find that the train wasn’t there, in a panic I looked at the screen to see if we had missed the train but luckily we haven’t, there was still one more minute to go, “thank God for that” Wiebke replied with a sigh of relief, as the train slowly made its way next to us we were the only people getting on, eventually the beeping sounds of the doors closing was nice to hear as the train started to leave the station, my legs felt like they were on fire after the small adventure I had just taken with Wiebke, but it was nice to be able to sit back down on a moving train and look out at the vast countryside we had just crossed, I don’t remember much of the journey home to Carmarthen, my eyes started closing as Pembrokeshire whizzed past, the heat inside the carriage was overwhelming, even though on this train there was air conditioning.

Just before my eyes closed I saw Wiebke doing the same and then darkness, the walk has worn us both out and sleep was the best idea.